Living pokédex guide part 1

I wrote a living dex zine this summer. It’s a guide based on what I did to complete my own living dex. If you are interested you can buy it here but I’m posting it here in parts as well. You can track my own living dex progress here.

History

A living Pokédex or “living dex”, as it is known, is having one of every single Pokémon in your in-game PC. The Living dex is a fan-created concept with the intent of adding a new layer of challenge or goal to the playing experience. The Living dex is a lot like the Nuzlocke challenge, there is a simple core concept but other players change or modify the concept to make it more fun for them. There are 802 Pokémon in the National Pokédex, not all of them can be obtained by playing the games.

Getting started

You can start your living dex at any point of your Pokémon journey. That being said, I have found that it’s easier to start earlier in the game, as you will spend less time back tracking to catch all those Pokémon found on the first few routes. Don’t worry if you can’t get every species of Pokémon you encounter at the start of the game; some Pokémon are harder to catch. Once you progress further in the game or finish the main story these will be easier to catch than others. Catching as many different Pokémon as you can while you play the main story of the game is the first step in completing your living dex.

This guide was created with the intention of being used with the gen 6 Pokémon games; some info has been added for Sun and Moon. This can be used with any older Pokémon game but millage may vary.

A word of warning: The rest of this guide is written assuming you have become the champion by beating the elite four. Additionally, not every aspect of obtaining Pokémon is gone over in detail in this guide. If you need more info on things I haven’t explained, I have listed helpful resources for this info at the end of this guide.

There are a few components to completing a living dex: Organizing, catching, breeding, evolving, and trading. First, we will start with how to organize your Pokémon!

Organizing

Organizing is the first step. This will help figure out what Pokémon you have and what Pokémon you still need.

Minimum requirements one gen 6 or gen 7 game. The PC in one game file can hold over 900 Pokémon. That is more than enough to hold a living dex. I use the Pokémon bank, Poké transporter, a pokédex iOS app, and a living dex tracking website.

Organize your storage system of choice by first naming your boxes 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, ect in multiples of 30 until you’ve reached 721. If you are including Sun/Moon in your living dex you’ll need to name your boxes up to 802. If you are interested only in collecting Pokémon exclusive to Sun and Moon you can stop at 302.

Transfer all Pokémon into your storage system of choice. If you want to, include your older gen Pokémon using the Poké Transporter application. The advantage of the Pokémon Bank is that you can transfer Pokémon from HGSS (through gen 5), BW, BW2, and Red/Blue/Yellow digital versions into your Pokémon Bank.

Keep all spare Pokémon. Pokémon that you have multiple of can come in handy later on because they will be useful for WT/ breeding/ leveling up. I recommend keeping most of your Pokémon in storage in their numbered boxes. But keep all the Pokémon you want and will use in the game you will be playing with to complete your dex.